BGF backs high-growth Click Travel with multi-million investment

BGF has backed tech-focused Click Travel, Britain’s fastest growing business travel management company, with a multi-million pound investment. This follows a sustained period of technological advances and new client wins.

Headquartered in Birmingham, the business was founded in 1999 by brothers Simon McLean, CTO and James McLean, CFO. Click Travel’s proprietary technology platform, travel.cloud, provides the look, feel and usability of a consumer site alongside services that help businesses reduce the cost and complexity of business travel.

Offering support across hotels, flights, rail, meetings and events, Click Travel manages millions of travel bookings a year for a wide variety of businesses from the FTSE 100 to the public and third sector, as well as offering the travel.cloud platform on a SaaS (Software as a Service) basis for SMEs and businesses who don’t want to be tied to a contract.

Click Travel’s next-generation approach to business travel management has seen the company averaging annual growth of 30 percent since 2012. BGF elected to back Click Travel based on the company’s potential for further growth – already validated by Click Travel’s inauguration into Tech Nation’s Future Fifty, a government-backed programme for late-stage digital businesses that counts Deliveroo, AO and Skyscanner among its alumni.

BGF is the UK’s most active investor in growing businesses, having invested £1.5billion across more than 230 businesses. Its funding will be channelled by Click Travel’s expert product and engineering team into delivering their vision for the future of travel management.

Jill Palmer, CEO, Click Travel said: “Click Travel has grown rapidly in recent years thanks to a great product and brilliant people. Our mission has always been to reduce the cost and complexity of travel management, which has enabled us to drive the expansion of the business.

“BGF’s long-term approach is the right fit for our business model and our future plans. Equally important, we have got to know the Birmingham team, their ethos and culture well over the past two years. We are looking forward to working with them and connecting into their wider network.”

Mark Freer, an investor at BGF who will join the board of Click Travel, said: “Jill, Simon and James are a fantastic management team with a combination of deep market knowledge, creativity and professionalism. They have established a strong reputation across a loyal customer base and operate in a market with significant growth potential. We’re delighted to be backing them.”

The investment was led for BGF by Mark Freer, Aaron Baker, Will Copeland and Tim Rea.

The advisors to the transaction were:

BGF: Browne Jacobson, Claritas Tax

Click Travel: PwC, Eversheds Sutherland